1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to powder granule sample inspection apparatuses that automatically and continuously inspect the number and size of coloured foreign particles mixed into the powder granule samples that are continuously sampled from an on-line tube or the like.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In order to inspect the number, size and so on of coloured foreign particles mixed into the powder granules such as pharmaceutical items and plastic material or the like that flow inside the on-line tube, according to the prior art, at every time when such inspection is necessary, powder granules are sampled by manually inserting such sampling tool into the on-line tube and then manually inspected. Accordingly, the inspection consumed hand work and much time, where the sample would change characteristics thereof during the inspection so that the acquired inspection data was of inferior precision. Further, since the inspection was only conducted on the obtained sample at each time, the acquired data was such that it can be said not to accurately reflect the nature of the sample that is continuously flowing through the on-line tube.